Romney’s business past, tax returns cause concern

October 31, 2012

I can see why Mitt Romney doesn't want to release any more tax returns. He released his 2010 tax return and it contains plenty of evidence of tax dodging activity on Romney's part.

I invite you to take a look at the article "Where the Money Lives" in the August issue of Vanity Fair magazine. The author consults a number of tax experts for their opinions on Romney's 2010 tax return.

The first thing that strikes the experts is that "a full 55 pages in Romney's 2010 tax return are devoted to reporting his transactions with foreign entities." In other words, these 55 pages are concerned with Romney's financial transactions with companies such as Bain Capital Partners, a Cayman Islands-based tax shelter. The tax experts note that Romney appears to have "chased every tax gimmick that comes down the pike." As Newt Gingrich remarked, "I don't know of any American President who has had a Swiss bank account." A Swiss bank account in the amount of $3 million appeared in Romney's 2010 return and then, according to the article, "winked out of existence in 2011 after the trustee closed it."

Bain Capital is the name of Romney's primary operating company. The article describes some of the activities of Bain Capital, including a description of Bain's handling of Dade International, a medical diagnostics company. If you saw the Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen movie Wall Street, you know what happened to Dade International. In fact, if you saw Wall Street, you know exactly what kind of company Bain Capital was and still is. The notion that companies like Bain are job creators is absolutely laughable, given their real activities.

When Bain first acquired Dade International, Dade had a plant in Puerto Rico that was being offered a $7.1 million tax break from the Territory of Puerto Rico as an incentive for job creation. As the operator of Dade, Bain accepted that $7.1 million, but a year later closed the Puerto Rican plant, anyway. Then, reassuring the employees that their jobs would be safe, Bain transferred some of the laid-off Puerto Ricans to its Miami plant. But, a year later, Bain closed the Miami plant as well and laid off all the employees.

After raiding the Dade pension fund, Bain created new financial projections for Dade and borrowed $421 million on that basis.

At this point, Bain made their move and extracted $365 million in dividends from Dade. (Bain's original investment had been $85 million.) Dade eventually went bankrupt.

Bain's relationship with all of the companies it took over did not necessarily follow this same path, but at least five other formerly successful companies ended up in bankruptcy. These included Stage Stores, Ampad, GStechnologies, Details, and KB Toys - all companies that Bain helped drive into bankruptcy.

Romney likes to brag about his credentials from "the private sector." He pretends that he hasn't been running for some kind of public office for the last 12 years, including senator from Massachusetts, governor of Massachusetts, and, more recently, in 2008 and now, the presidency. If you examine his credentials from "the private sector" closely, it's clear that he has very little to brag about.

The worst thing is that while patriotic American Service men and women are putting their lives on the line for their country, Romney is doing all he can to dodge his fair share of U. S. taxes.

Job creator? Maybe a few in Switzerland, The Cayman Islands, Bermuda ... who knows? Job creation is so unimportant to companies like Bain that they don't even keep track of the numbers.